


Landed

by endlesshour



Category: Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Genre: Airline Flight, Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Internalized Homophobia, Enemies to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Irrationally rational fears, M/M, Mentioned Divorce and/or Marriage Collapse, Mentioned Regina Minderbinder/Milo Minderbinder, Post vietnam war life in the 1960's
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29430129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlesshour/pseuds/endlesshour
Summary: All your favorite C22 survivors, except it's 1964 and the war was the Vietnam War. It's back to civilian life, reconnecting and building relationships, reminiscing on the war days, and catharsis because life moves on, time keeps passing, and there's money to make.The characters each chapter is about is written in the beginning author's note at each chapter.
Relationships: Clevinger/Dunbar (Catch-22), Milo Minderbinder/Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen, Regina Minderbinder/Albert Taylor Tappman's Wife
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	1. a deal inspired by gravity

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter centers around Clevinger, Dunbar, Milo, and Wintergreen.
> 
> Important notes: the year this alternate universe takes place is 1964, and while I'm pretty certain on historical accuracies, please let me know if I've gotten anything wrong. Writing c22 fanfic always feels marginally like committing a sin. It'll be multiple chapters when I get around to the rest. It'll either be 3 or 10 chapters upon completion. We'll see. Depends on how much of a life I don't have. I feel like there's more I should put here but I can't remember what. Cheers!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo is working on a flight and finds his biggest competitor. Meanwhile, Dunbar meets a friend of a friend, and they get to talking.

_ What you think won’t happen will. _

Those were the words written on the P.K. bubblegum strip Dunbar held in his palm. They held a level of mystery and intrigue which strung him along with vapid anticipation. What didn’t he think was going to happen? The list of what he  _ did _ think would happen was infinitely shorter; he’d bought his Eastern Airline flight tickets three months prior - back in February - and had anticipated each day but this one. He gave the bubblegum strip fortune one final side-eye before crumpling and flipping it into a convenient waste bin with his thumb and forefinger. Fortunes like that were harbingers of pointless thought, the same way Dunbar considered the religious construct to be after scores of hours rationalizing and understanding it. He’d lived for 122983 hours and counting, which permitted him a cozy amount of time to ruminate on the nature of existence and other trivial, mundane subjects.

“Now boarding for flight twenty-three to Santa Ana,” the voice on the intercom called, and Dunbar picked up his pace to reach the desk before departure.

Commercial flights were much more of a novelty. He reminded himself of this - and the safety precautions established - in the weeks leading up to this day. It wouldn’t be like the days in Vietnam, the tumultuous engines and flak shrieking against the base of his plane and the nights, drinking as much as he could to make the fear dissolve into absolute nothingness. Common sense deteriorated far before that, if it had ever existed in the first place. 

The majority of Dunbar’s belongings had been packed the night before in a tidy Musette bag which he’d smuggled out of Vietnam after being smuggled out of the Air Force ranks. Soldiers were useful as long as they complied, and irritably Dunbar had complied less and less until he’d taken to working at cross purposes. Everyone on the base began to loathe or fear, suspect or abominate, disrelish or distrust him, and one sunny afternoon someone popped a burlap sack over his head and cuffed his jaw. It put a neat end to all the problems Dunbar had been causing. He was soon forgotten about by everyone but Yossarian, who questioned Dunbar’s sudden and untimely disappearance but could do nothing about it.

Part of his release included agreeing to move to Santa Ana and start a new life in a new city where he wouldn’t reconcile with anyone else from the service who might’ve lived. When given the option between that or immeasurable imprisonment, the choice was clear. He’d adapted abysmally to civilian life, snapping at salespeople, waiters, cashiers, and anyone else who happened to be unfortunate enough to confabulate with him. Dunbar, above all, was bitter. He revenged himself on all the injustices of the world with each dirty look and crease of his brow. Even in the airport, he snarled at the airport service agent checking his passport to confirm that he really was John Dunbar. “Who else would I be?” he demanded, but the service agent didn’t have an answer.

He scaled the little white steps which lead to the plane entrance. The engines were already roaring, each tread rattling as Dunbar stepped on it. He didn’t like the way it shook and for once, his prosaic tetchiness had been replaced with the perturbation he’d tried to escape for so long. Within a moment - the longest moment Dunbar had ever experienced - he was consumed by the large mechanical beast.

* * *

The plane seats were large and spacious, far more commodious than the stuffy inside of a fighter plane with nowhere else to go - although Wintergreen was blissfully unaware of that due to his constant AWOL status. He no longer held this status after a twenty-fourth court martial where someone decided to discharge him once and for all, which he accepted with Nietzschean nihilism like anything else. In truth, the release had come as a great reassurance, and Wintergreen was effervescent in the following days as he devoted time to his black market presence.

“Are you the flight attendant here?” he demanded of a man in a regulation tawny vest. 

The man pivoted neatly. “Effectively. I’ll be serving as an attendant for this flight,” he itched a rather lopsided technicolor moustache thoughtfully, “My name’s Milo Minderbinder. May I help you?”

Wintergreen nodded. “I’m supposed to be in first class,” he held out the fraudulent ticket he’d forged two nights before, “See? It says here.”

“You’re Wintergreen?” Milo asked, looking at both the ticket and Wintergreen at the same time to discern the owner of the ticket.

“Yes, I’m Wintergreen. You’re Milo?”

“Why, yes.”

Wintergreen snatched the ticket back after giving Milo a few more seconds to look at it. “Perfect. Now that you’ve seen the ticket, I’d like to be seated.”

“All the first class passengers have been seated, it’s full up front. But don’t you worry!” Milo raised his left hand and beckoned for Wintergreen to bring his ear closer. He brought his voice to a whisper, “I’ve got some excellent ingredients - say, enough to make a nice veal cutlet and a chocolate bavarian torte - I’ll bring it to you during the dinner portion of the flight if you’d like.”

Wintergreen furrowed his brow. “Is that what you’re serving up in first class these days?”

“No, no. I stole them from the airline lounge.”

At first, the overture hadn’t seemed interesting, but the world ‘stole’ opened up a world of opportunity. It also imbued Wintergreen with skepticism. He narrowed his eyes, taking a step out of the gap between the numerous airline seats. “Why’re you offering me this?”

“You’re supposed to be in first class, but apparently someone made a mistake and you’ll be back here for the flight, which you’ve presumably already paid first class for,” Milo shrugged, “Think of it as compensation.”

When Milo walked back behind the curtains, Wintergreen reclined comfortably in the large chair which had been allotted to him. He wore a smirk that stretched across his face like a ray of light. His biggest worry was someone taking the seat beside him, but the entrance to the plane latched back up with no one at his side. He set down the leather briefcase he’d carried, which included mail he’d managed to smuggle on his way out of the twenty-fourth court martial and a plethora of black market items he’d formulated to sell over the succeeding hours. And by the looks of it, those hours would be pretty damn lucrative.

* * *

Dunbar shifted uneasily in his seat as a lean blonde flight attendant shut the plane hatch. She had a short aquiline nose and wore her hair pinned up in a bob that reminded Dunbar of how one of the Air Force nurses at the hospital had liked to wear hers. Around the woman’s neck, a vermillion ascot dangled down slightly longer than it should’ve, but she didn’t appear to notice. It all seemed an unnecessary formality. 

Although it had been but a minute, the air within the plane felt close and dense. Dunbar pulled at the collar of his shirt. He stole a glance at the man beside him, who had his nose buried in a book of Emily Dickinson poems. He’d never been one for emotional reticence - or any other sort of reticence, for that matter. Against Dunbar’s wishes, the man looked up from the book, set it aside, removed his glasses, and turned to Dunbar. For a few moments he scrutinized Dunbar’s face. The glasses he’d taken off had half-centimeter plastic frames and no glass between them. “Did you lose your lenses?” Dunbar asked him impulsively.

“No, they came this way,” the man explained, unhooking them from his collar as if to examine them for grime or abrasions, “I use them for reading,” which was vaguely a lie; he thought the black rims made him look intelligent - although they couldn’t have glass between them because his vision was fine. In reality, he appeared to be a very intelligent idiot. “My name’s Timothy Clevinger, by the way. I thought you were someone I knew for a second there.”

Clevinger looked like someone Dunbar knew too. He kicked back in his seat until it clicked thirty-two seconds later. “Air force!” he exclaimed, slamming a fist down on one of the armrests before elaborating, “Vietnam! Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters! Clevinger?”

For once, Dunbar had forgotten to be bitter. He folded his arms across his chest, smoothing down the light green button-up shirt he wore. It still held the starch-stiff creases and mephitic scent of slightly burnt fabric from ironing the night before, but it barely phased him except for that morning, when it added substantially to his churlishness. Clevinger blinked a couple times like someone was aiming strobe lights directly at his eyes. “Dunbar?” he asked after a moment, “What’re you doing here?”

“Who cares?”

“Why, I do! I haven’t seen you for- well, let’s see now- it’s been seven months. You’re on a commercial flight. I’ve taken my own job - even been published! In Oxford for Philosophy - I don’t suppose you’ve read it?”

Dunbar eyed him without answering his question. “Didn’t your plane vanish, no survivors? Why are you on a plane  _ again? _ ”

“I’m heading back to my ranch in Santa Ana,” Clevinger explained patiently, endeavoring to maintain his composure, “Besides, flights aren’t nerve-wracking when you think about it. It isn’t like we’re going to die. Even if we did die, I don’t think you’d be complaining about it.”

“I wouldn’t be  _ complaining _ because I’d be  _ dead _ .”

Clevinger frowned. He gave a dry swallow and blinked rapidly with large, glossy eyes. “Exactly! If this plane crashed, I can give you a guarantee that none of us would complain. I don’t even think you’d be bothered.”

“Clev, I’d be  _ dead! _ ”

“Of course you’d be dead! People don’t often survive plane crashes - are you crazy? Here- let me give you a demonstration-”

Dunbar massaged his temples. “ _ Don’t _ give me a demonstration,” he waited until Clevinger placed his Emily Dickinson poem book back on his lap and gave a prostrate sigh.

Clevinger realized a topic change was in order and leaned over closer to Dunbar’s seat. “Well, now you’ve changed the topic!” he exclaimed accusingly, “Now it’s been changed, there’s no going back. Maybe you’d like to hear about my philosophy publication?”

“Sure,” said Dunbar, who wanted nothing less.

But he never did hear about Clevinger’s philosophy publication because the pilot announced over the intercom that takeoff was impending, and upon hearing the engines start up, Dunbar white-knuckled the armrest until Clevinger pried his fingers off and made him put them in his lap, where he disconsolately wrung his hands until Clevinger made him stop that, too, in fear that he might hurt himself by mistake. With a jolt, the plane launched into the air, and before either of the men knew it, the flight had officially begun. 

* * *

The Air Force didn’t have a place for private enterprise, much to Milo’s chagrin. Then again, anyone with sufficient money could buy a place out of the military and into the civilian world, which Milo found necessary after facing court martial. A good mess officer simply couldn’t operate well if he was detained, and after one court martial, the threat of custody was too much. Milo procured freedom with a few negotiations here and there, offering to work as a flight attendant to get from one desired location to another - and to sell black market paraphernalia to the passengers - although he had dozens of government planes at his disposal. A flight attendant was just an airborne mess officer.

For seven hours, the plane would stay aloft. The commuters were wealthy, from brand-name articles of clothing to expensive watches and carry-ons. The sheer amount of potential which surrounded Milo was sensational. Nothing existed that he couldn’t sell, cater, arrange, score, snap up, and bargain. Who  _ didn’t _ want to be a part of his M&M Enterprises?

Thirty minutes into the flight, Milo found out exactly who didn’t want to be a part of it. He stood in the back, boiling water and mixing eggs and milk together for Wintergreen’s chocolate torte. From the cabin, ambient chatter filled the empty space; this was an afternoon flight, after all, and people only seemed to fancy colloquy during the light portion of a sidereal day. Still, one discrete conversation stood out, which took place between Wintergreen and another passenger, who had decided to purchase one of the fine silver-etched black market watches off him. The particular ware was bordered by a maroon leather band, which Milo recognized as a product he’d intended to sell that very day.

He curled his hand into a fist, and stepped out from behind the flight attendant lounge cordially. “Wintergreen,” Milo began, scritching nervously at the auburn portion of his moustache, “What’s the price on the watch you’ve got there?”

Wintergreen arrested himself mid sentence and turned to face Milo. “Why, two hundred dollars,” he chuckled to himself, pressing the aviator-style wire framed glasses up onto the bridge of his nose, “I’ve got all competitors beat. Some M&M Enterprises schmuck keeps trying to surpass  _ my _ products. He’ll never manage, or my name isn’t Wintergreen.”

“Maybe you ought to work with this… M&M Enterprises… instead of contesting him,” Milo remarked, nonplussed, “I’m sure he’s a wonderful fellow.”

“Wonderful?” Wintergreen scoffed with a laugh, “He brings people together. Everyone can agree what a prick he is. Only thing I’ve ever seen the world agreeing on.”

“Maybe he’s just trying to run a syndicate where everyone benefits.”

“Everyone? He hasn’t even got a partner! Like they say, the second ‘M’s silent.”

“They say that?” wailed Milo, who had suffered near enough ego-beating for one day. “Who’s they?”

“Who  _ isn’t _ they?”

“Who  _ isn’t _ they,” Milo numbly echoed, “How can you even make a profit, selling a watch like that for only two-hundred?”

Wintergreen explained, but Milo couldn’t hear a word because for the next ten minutes, turbulence and the engines grew exceptionally loud and droned out his voice. Milo retreated into the attendant sitting room like a wounded dog and cheerlessly whisked the eggs into stiff peaks till his wrist ached. Maybe today’s enterprise wouldn’t be as affluent as he’d envisaged it to be.

* * *

Clevinger. Maybe that was what he didn’t think was going to happen. Although at the same time, he hadn’t  _ not _ thought Clevinger wouldn’t happen. Dunbar shook himself into reality, essaying to contemplate anything but the bubblegum fortune. He’d already deliberated that conceptually, it served as nothing more than a waste of time, yet forbidden topics were always the most delightful to have in mind. “This plane isn’t going to crash,” Clevinger reassured him. He had a superlative inaptitude of reading the emotional atmosphere, yet it seemed opportune to remind Dunbar in case he began white-knuckling it again.

“I don’t think it will.”

“Then you’re crazy to worry.”

“You’re crazy to not worry.”

“What do you mean? There’s nothing to worry about!”

“Except for what there is,” Dunbar told him resolutely, patting his hand, “Why don’t you shut up and read your Dickinson?”

Clevinger obliged until the intercom static blared over the ceaseless chatter and informed the passengers that the arrival time would be a half an hour longer, and to be aware of impending turbulence which would be violent, and so seatbelts would be necessary. Clevinger missed the announcement and left his seatbelt undone until the plane bounced up in a choppy manner and sent him flying off his seat. He landed with an agonizing thud, stood back up, and gave Dunbar hell for neglecting to tell him about the seatbelts. Halfway through his tirade, the plane jolted up again and callously threw him onto the floor for a second time. 

“It’s your fault! You should’ve told me!” he grumbled, buckling himself back into the chair.

“I couldn’t.”

“Why the hell couldn’t you?”

“I was too busy buckling myself in.”

Clevinger sputtered, but he didn’t have a decent response and flounced back into his chair. “Congratulations. There’s nothing I could possibly reply to that without looking like an idiot.”

“You  _ are  _ an idiot.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to look like one!”  
Dunbar eyed the thick glasses frames without lenses which had managed to stay still during the merciless plane movement. “Sure you don’t.”

“Oh! I’ve been meaning to ask. Why are you headed to Santa Ana?”

“Moving there.”

“Oh,” Clevinger glanced up in as self-effacing a manner as he could manage, which wasn’t all that successful given his typical appearance of wide eyes and insisting tone. “I can help you move in.”

“Sure,” said Dunbar, who wanted nothing less than Clevinger helping him lift furniture over the length of a hot, dry Santa Ana afternoon. It would be tedious. It would spark light-hearted and meaningless disputes. It would take an extensive amount of time. In that moment, Dunbar changed his mind and decided he wanted nothing more than Clevinger, helping him lift furniture over the length of a hot, dry Santa Ana afternoon. 

* * *

Milo had finished baking the torte and the breaded veal had roasted in the oil for just long enough. Airlines were the only business insensible enough to serve dinner at three in the afternoon. Somehow, the first class passengers were hungry and eagerly receiving the food which had been concocted by Milo’s seasoned hand. These meals included roast chicken breast garnished with rosemary, small round lumps of boule, fanciful cocktails of all sorts, and side dishes of sauteed vegetables.

Economy seating passengers were fed well, too, although their dinners lacked the cocktails because it wouldn’t be truly fair for those paying more and less to receive the same. If that were the case, commercial businesses would be highway robbery. After busing the first class passengers, Milo schlepped the dinner he’d promised Wintergreen over to him. He set it down, then set himself down on the vacant seat next to Wintergreen.

Five minutes into the meal, Wintergreen noticed Milo. “Can I help you?” he spit the words out along with a chunk of veal cutlet which he hadn’t swallowed.

“No,” Milo replied, and Wintergreen returned to eating.

Fifteen minutes later, Milo still hadn’t left. Instead, he sat with his hands in the tan pockets of the neat airline suit, watching Wintergreen with intrigue. He couldn’t see him all too well, but that didn’t matter because he could also see everything else in the plane, although he couldn’t see any of that too well either. “You’re still here,” Wintergreen pointed out.

“I am,” Milo replied, but this time Wintergreen didn’t return to eating.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“You’ve got something better to do,” Wintergreen guessed.

Milo shook his head. “Why, what’s better to do than… say… discussing profit?”

“Oh this is about the watches,” Wintergreen snapped his fingers at the realization, pushing the then-empty plate where the veal cutlet once was away, “You’re in the business too?”

“You could say that,” Milo volunteered. He’d made a silent pact with himself not to divulge his true identity, although it was inefficacious if Wintergreen already knew. Milo assured himself that he didn’t, and worked under that assumption.

“On the black market?” Wintergreen asked quietly.

“Certainly.”

“Assumed name?”

Milo drew back. “I can’t tell you.”

Wintergreen nudged his glasses back up onto his nose with his index finger. They were marginally too large for him and slipped down on occasion. He laughed dryly. “Why not?”

Milo licked at his dry lips with a dry tongue and realized that everything seemed too dry. He was a king of countries! Prime minister of provinces! Proudly in possession of 142 world-renowned titles! But… to Wintergreen he was a flight attendant. Wintergreen who demeaned him behind his back  _ in front _ of his back. What kind of snide little insolent punk had enough gusto to bad-mouth one of the most powerful men in the world? Unfortunately, Milo had his answer. He glanced back over to Wintergreen, who was still awaiting an answer. “You don’t like him.”

“Milo! I can call you that, right?” Wintergreen elbowed him and Milo nodded and gave him a note of affirmation, “Just between you and me… I don’t like any of those bastards on the market. All too stodgy. Anyway, didn’t you want to discuss profits?”

“No,” Milo replied, even though he would’ve loved to.

“That’s a shame,” Wintergreen decided, patting Milo’s shoulder in consolation, “Tell you what. You come back later and we’ll talk profit.”

“Wonderful!” Milo stood up and gave Wintergreen a charming, lopsided smile, “See you later.”

He left the cabin to return to the lounge. Wintergreen snickered to himself. He got a tremendous kick out of Milo pretending to  _ not _ be Milo Minderbinder of M&M Enterprises. In reality, joining M&M Enterprises was an aspiration of Wintergreen’s - he savored unadulterated power, and while his once American Air Force mail clerk position had been formidable,  _ the _ partner of M&M Enterprises was even better. Wintergreen sunk back into the headrest, allowing himself to doze off even though he wasn’t tired. Soon enough, he’d have a syndicate share of his very own. 

* * *

The announcement arrived just twenty minutes after dinner. Dunbar had eaten well, although the food had done little to calm his nerves and instead made him marginally more nauseous. The dyspepsia felt unnervingly strong, which made him more nauseous. He’d neglected to carry on a sleeve of tums, which he had started to regret immensely. Meanwhile, Clevinger sat mopping up ginger ale from his business suit pants. The turbulence on the plane had not regressed, instead growing more intense until even the most Herculean of passengers would have succumbed to it. “Attention passengers,” a man’s voice came on, imbued by the general static quality of the intercom, “This is your captain speaking. We’re going to have to make a premature landing in Austin. Stay calm folks-”

“We’re going to crash,” Dunbar yelled in a whisper.

“Didn’t you hear what the pilot said?” Clevinger - who had remained calm and temporarily stopped drying his khakis - said, “He told us to stay calm.”

“He told us we’d better worry because we’re in danger,” Dunbar replied.

“-we’ve got everything under control. We’ll be making a smooth touch down in T-minus forty minutes. Nothing to be worried about.”

“See?” Clevinger pointed at the speaker naively, “He said they have everything perfectly under control, they’re going to land safely.”

“He’s going to crash the plane and we’re all going to die,” Dunbar wrapped one hand hysterically around the armrest, “Is that what you want? We’re going to die!”

Clevinger opened his mouth to oppose him, but Dunbar had gone limp into the seat. He put one hand on Dunbar’s forehead and decided that - from everything he’d learned in high school first aid courses - Dunbar must have been experiencing a heart attack. He leapt to conclusions faster than the plane could fly. Surely it was a heart attack and not the indigestion. He held two fingers at Dunbar’s wrist, feeling for a pulse, but the shaking of the plane made finding one a Sisyphean task. 

“Flight attendant!” he called as he unbuckled Dunbar’s seatbelt and eased him to the floor. Milo popped his head out from behind the curtains. “Grab this man a glass of water, please. I believe he’s having an emergency.”

“He’s asleep, I can’t do that,” Milo refuted, “You have to be awake to receive food or drink. Those are rules.”

Clevinger undid the top buttons of Dunbar’s shirt (which held the overly-tight tie in place) and lifted his chin up slightly. The commotion had drawn numerous other passengers to look over at Clevinger. “Then get me the water if you can’t give him water,” Clevinger requested, since the rules were the rules. He had an allergy to breaking them. 

“I can’t do that either, you’re occupied.”

Clevinger poked at one of Dunbar’s cheeks to try and wake him, but got no response. “What if he dies because you didn’t get him water?” Clevinger demanded fervently, wiping his brow with one wiry hand.

“Then he’s just going to die,” said Wintergreen, who had been watching the entire hullabaloo go down.

Clevinger gave a helpless moan and turned back to his patient. He rolled up the blue-and-white striped sleeves on his button-up and removed the formal black jacket of his three-piece suit. Gingerly, he leaned Dunbar’s head up towards the ceiling and bent over, pinching the bridge of his nose. He pressed his lips against Dunbar’s and administered two puffs of air. The linoleum patterns swirled in his eyes and he shut them and focused on position, recounting each step he’d been taught. The words of his instructor flashed in his mind. When he pulled away and opened his eyes again, he was breathless. Those five seconds were the longest Clevinger had ever experienced, and for a moment he understood what Dunbar had meant by wasting time for a longer life.

Because it had never been a heart attack - merely indigestion and then the heebie-jeebies about the plane crashing - Dunbar sat up with a cough and a jolt and the cabin burst into applause. Milo brought out the glass of water, which Clevinger swiped from him almost instantly to pass to Dunbar before ordering a glass for himself. “What the hell are you doing?” Dunbar demanded, then: “Why the hell am I on the floor?”

“I saved your life,” Clevinger told him proudly, although he had done no such thing. The words sounded nice. Him, a life saver. He was so caught up in admiring his achievement, he barely noticed the turbulence anymore. 

For the first time, Dunbar gave a hint of a smile. “Thanks.”

The two of them sat back down and the cabin assumed the dull babble it had before, pretending nothing had happened. Air fare was more interesting than a man having a heart attack who wasn’t  _ actually _ having a heart attack. Only twenty more minutes until landing.

* * *

Only an hour had passed even though three hours had passed. Milo left the cabin for a sixth time to investigate the suspicious burning scent. The plane was an older model and the fire detectors hadn’t been updated in a few months despite badly needing it. They had exonerated themselves from the fire-protection duty and left danger of fire for the passengers. He quickly discovered the source, which happened to be Wintergreen. He held typed and emblazoned envelopes in one hand and a zippo lighter in the other, watching the contents burn until the blazes had grown sizable. Then he tossed it to the ground and snubbed the fire into the linoleum with the rubber sole of his shoe.

Milo watched this process a few times before inserting himself into the situation. He straightened his coat and put one hand between Wintergreen and himself. “Wintergreen, you’re endangering everyone,” he said.

“It’s just business,” Wintergreen crossed his legs, “What’s the saying? What’s good for one man is good for enterprise?”

“What’s good for M&M Enterprises is good for the country.”

“Exactly! Now, if I don’t burn this mail, I might get put to another court martial,” Wintergreen said, lowering his voice, “I don’t want to do this, but someone’s got to. Besides, who knows what might happen to business if something happens to me?”

Milo, a passionless man in everything but his marriage to the syndicate, fell in love. He fell in love with the business prospect of Wintergreen. “Precisely. Besides, it’s not against airplane regulations to use the lighter,” Milo recounted.

“Well of course it’s not! How else are people going to have a smoke?”

“Do you smoke?” Milo asked, although he didn’t care.

“No.”

“That aside. Would you mind lighting the fire for the kettle for me?” Milo asked.

“Why can’t you do it?”

“It’s against regulations.”

“What is?” Wintergreen rolled his eyes. Regulations only existed when people chose to pay attention to them, and some people paid far too much attention.

“Flight attendants using lighters or matches. It’s not against regulations for passengers to, though.”

“You’re telling me,” Wintergreen started sarcastically, “I could light this whole damn plane on fire with my zippo lighter and you could sit there for the whole damnable flight and never light your own cigarette because of regulations?”

“Yes, that’s how it is. It wouldn’t be right to ignore the regulations.”

“What if I lent you my own lighter?” Wintergreen asked him, although if Milo were getting any of the lighters, it’d be the twenty-sixth damaged one sitting at the bottom of his suitcase.

Milo smiled. “Why, then I could do it.”

Wintergreen was flabbergasted. “But didn’t you just tell me regulations prevent you from using fire?”

“Why, they do,” Milo reasoned shyly, “But then I’d be using  _ your _ fire. And if the authorities asked, I could always say that it was you who really was in possession of the fire, since it was your lighter. Really, no one would be the wiser.”

After a few more minutes of back-and-forth, Wintergreen followed Milo to the back of the plane behind the curtains and begrudgingly lent him his lighter, which Milo used to make tea and coffee. And everyone had a cup.

* * *

Dunbar resigned himself to the idea of dying on the flight which would inevitably crash even though Clevinger, the pilot, the co-pilot, numerous other passengers, and the flight attendants had all told him it wouldn’t. Maybe this is what he didn’t think would happen. Dunbar absolved to start thinking it would happen  _ just  _ so it wouldn’t. Still, he firmly believed the fortune was hogwash, and thus any attempts to think something would happen so it wouldn’t (or vice versa) were futile. Instead, Dunbar made the most of his time by doing the least so it would feel longer than the inevitably short amount of time he actually had. “You should make the most of this time too,” he calmly told Clevinger, “Right now, you’re making the least of it.”

“I’m reading.”

“You’ll die reading.”

“I’m not going to die.  _ You’re _ not going to die,” Clevinger absolved to avoid future arguments with Dunbar, not because he didn’t like arguing but because Dunbar arguments got so far nowhere that they started going backward.

“You like reading?”

“Yes.”

“Then watch this. You’ll be twenty pages in and the plane will crash down, but you’ll be too absorbed in your lines to realize it and this time will be gone. You’d wish for it back, but you can’t wish when you’re one second away from death. We’re one second away from it right this instant, adrift in this tumultuous plane. Snap your fingers and we’ll be on the ground!”

Clevinger snapped his fingers. “No, we aren’t. For God’s sake, we’re going to land alri-”

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We’ve had a flight control problem that up here, we’ll be landing in ten minutes in D-F-W Dallas Fort Worth Airport. Please stay buckled into your seats, we should be able to clear up the few remaining issues shortly. Everything is under control.”

“That’s what someone who doesn’t have everything under control would say,” Dunbar hissed.

The plane dropped down with a jerk and the hard-cover copy of Emily Dickinson’s poems went flying into the air along with everything else that hadn’t been tied down. For a moment, the cabin resembled a cold winter day with first snow, except instead of snow, all manners of objects were suspended helplessly in midair before plummeting down. Empty glasses rolled sans orientation around on the floor. Book and magazine pages bent and contorted into dog ears and more significant creases. In-cabin pillows flew around until one ripped on the corner of someone’s purse and feathers flooded the rows of seats like waves, which settled down eventually.

Clevinger pressed his hands together and held them beneath his chin. He wasn’t scared halfway to death like Dunbar, but the situation left him hope in his prayers. The last plane he’d flown had disappeared, then crashed, and he’d been in shock in more ways than one. His physical shock was amended and ministered to, but the mental shock of refusing to believe he’d ever crashed had stuck with him. He remembered the event like a movie, not an incident of his own life. Of all circumstances, nothing had shook the truth back into him like the jilting of a commercial airplane, even though he believed it couldn’t crash because it couldn’t. The possibility that it  _ could _ crash because it could was a frightening one, and Clevinger felt the sudden desire to assuage this particular worry.

“What’re you doing?” Dunbar interrupted.

Clevinger shrugged vehemently. “I’m praying to God.”

“There is no God,” Dunbar scolded.

“Prove to me there isn’t.”

“Fine. On the fourth day, what’s created?”

“Light.”

“No, no,” Dunbar shook his head, “More specific.”

“The sun?”

“Exactly. Now, you tell me how the hell four  _ days _ passed without the sun there,” he waited for the impending silence, and upon hearing it, struck up his next point, “You aren’t going to do any good by saying words.”

“I’m doing myself plenty of good,” said Clevinger, who found the words comforting because they were words and he could say them. He couldn’t save himself but he could save his sanity, which stood like a sugar cone, fragile but at the same time, indominably strong.

“You aren’t saving your life.”

The opportunity had been presented and Clevinger pounced on it like a cat to a mouse. “But I saved yours!”

“If you’re dead, you can’t help me move in. If I’m dead, I can’t move in. And neither of us would complain because we’d both be dead.”

“What do you want, then?” Clevinger asked him with tired vigor. He pushed up on the armrest with one hand as the plane plummeted some more, “No reading, no praying, no eating. What’s left?”

“Let’s just sit.”

“In silence?”

“Together.”

* * *

Feeling the plane go down was no concern of Wintergreen’s, who had just finished burning all the remaining confidential mail in his briefcase and set his sights on joining Milo. Personal enterprise didn’t go around waiting for planes to land. It sped around in fords, launched itself into the air on pogo sticks and sprinted out of grasp. The way the flight had been going, Wintergreen’s profits were already running circles around Milo. From the window beside the seats, Wintergreen watched the ground grow closer and closer as if someone had pulled a magnifying glass to it and stared in at the dusty tundra with one eye. He decided he was better suited to work on the ground.

True to his word, Milo arrived and sat back in the seat beside Wintergreen, where they discussed profits. First, Milo explained his business methods - he’d decided to trust Wintergreen because anyone invested enough in personal enterprise to burn mail was an admirable asset - although Wintergreen couldn’t hear a word because the speakers crackled on and the co-pilot made an announcement. Second, Wintergreen explained  _ his _ business methods, although Milo couldn’t hear him because a couple had brought their child on the flight, and the baby’s ears had popped, leaving a screaming child who only quieted after Wintergreen had finished speaking. Neither had any questions for the other because they both understood perfectly.

“You know,” Milo raised his voice to be heard over the din, “I’d like to tell you something.”

“What’s that?”

“I’d like to tell you something,” Milo raised his voice more.

Wintergreen shook his head. “I got that part, tell me what? And lower your voice, why the hell are you yelling?”

“I’m Milo Minderbinder of M&M Enterprises,” Milo admitted in a quieter voice, which he had to repeat because he’d become so quiet that Wintergreen couldn’t hear him.

Wintergreen gave a contemptuous smile. “I knew it.”

“You did?”

“Of course! Do you know any other Milo Minderbinders out there who have a special interest in the black market? No, I’ve known it was you from the beginning.”

“Then,” Milo contemplated, giving the corner of his moustache a light scratch, “In the spirit of eliminating competition and increasing profits- why don’t you work with me? There’s an extensive amount of travel, you know, but I’d like a partner.”

“You’d like me to be your partner?” Wintergreen asked expectantly.

“I would,” Milo admitted, all the scams the two of them could arrange and all the profit they’d turn already dancing fancifully in his head, “It’ll be good for me, and what’s good for me is-”

“-good for the syndicate,” finished Wintergreen, unfolding a newspaper he hadn’t burned to block people looking in from the isle. He took the opportunity to plant a kiss on the corner of Milo’s lip, which was made rather awkward by the moustache.

“Not that kind of partner!”

“Would you like it to be?”

Milo decided that he would, and told Wintergreen, who attempted to abscond with him to the flight attendant’s lounge. The chances are good that they would have made it had the plane not smashed into the ground - thankfully landing on the base of the plane - and the two men evacuated the plane along with the rest of the passengers instead of sleeping with each other in the flight attendant lounge.

* * *

Dunbar jumped when the plane hit the ground, landing gear deployed at the wrong time. At the base of the plane exit was a large inflatable, ground control helping passengers jump the ten feet from the plane to the inflatable, except for the baby who had been screaming earlier and needed to be retrieved from its mother’s arms with a ladder. Clevinger gave a dry swallow and looked at it over the shoulders of the other passengers. Instinctively, he reached in front of himself for Dunbar’s hand. 

Dunbar glanced down at the clammy hand he was holding in surprise, then laughed. “And they say romance is dead.”

The starboard engine burst into flames. The majority of the passengers had been evacuated already, standing on the ground. The plane would never fly again, one wing melted into the ground. It looked like a fallen tree branch with the bark stripped off of it, all in various shades of platinum and grey. “It’s not,” Clevinger replied, “But you’re about to be if you don’t move.”

As soon as everyone had left the plane, it was set ablaze. A rainstorm an hour later arrived sooner than the fire trucks, and by the time the fire trucks arrived, ground control and the rain had taken care of the fire. Clevinger and Dunbar spent the next three nights together at a hotel adjacent to the airport until the next available flight from Dallas to Santa Ana was. The world is volatile. What goes up always comes down, until you see the world from upside down and inside out, and then what goes up can only go up more to come back down. 

Planes weren’t safe. Early Saturday morning - the day of the flight - Dunbar unwrapped himself from around Clevinger, kissed his cheek, got dressed, and walked to the nearby Enterprise Rent-A-Car which had been established 7 years prior to rent a ‘57 Chevy Bel Air. Clevinger woke up before Dunbar returned, fried up the remaining eggs they’d bought, and offered him breakfast upon his return. “We don’t have to fly!” were Dunbar’s first words, then, “Oh, good morning, Clev.”

“Good morning to you, too,” Clevinger passed him one of the eggs on a paper plate, “Here. Eat. Of course we’re flying, are you crazy? How else are we getting home?”

“I rented us a car. Twenty hours of sitting at the wheel and we’ll be back home.”  
“You’re insane! Twenty hours?”

“I’ll drive. If you ask me to read the map, we’ll wind up in Iceland.”

“What are you- Iceland isn’t even connected to North America. It’s in the opposite direction! It’s an  _ island _ !”

“You’ve just proved my point,” Dunbar assured, patting him on the back, “I’ll drive. We leave whenever we check out. I’ll pack our things, you take care of the check out. No plane, no death. Call up and cancel our seats, how about it?”

Clevinger agreed submissively. There was nothing he wanted less than a 20 hour car ride with Dunbar. It would be tedious. It would spark light-hearted and mirthful arguments. It would take an extensive amount of time. And Clevinger changed his mind and decided instead that there was nothing he wanted  _ more than _ Dunbar, and a 20 hour car ride with him. Cleaning the egg pan, Clevinger glanced over at Dunbar. He gave a faint yet passionate smile. “Who said romance was dead?”


	2. resolve is just a concept

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dunbar and Clevinger drive to Santa Ana, California from Dallas, Texas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features Clevinger and Dunbar.
> 
> I tried to make it historically accurate, but as always, call me out if it's not. I hope this is an interesting chapter because car rides usually aren't. Just kidding, car rides are dull, but that's why they're so good. Anyway, enjoy! :)

The day began as every other day, except this day was different and thus was very much unlike any other day. The car still smelled faintly of freshly pressed coffee and pan-fried bacon with eggs on the side from the little Texas diner Clevinger had insisted they nosh at before embarking on the twenty-hour journey Dunbar had meticulously devised and plotted out. He’d already made the two of them scrambled eggs, but by the time flight reservations had been cancelled and their luggage loaded up, Clevinger decided he was hungry again and the extensive midwest roads gave no promise of viaticum.

Fifty miles until the first freeway exit of the trip gave Clevinger very little to do, and after creasing his map into thirty-two smaller rectangles and slipping it into the glove compartment, he found himself wallowing in accidie. “How do you do this?” he asked aloud.

“Do what?”

“Do nothing. The air in here, heavy with languor, the ennui of our current circumstance.”

Dunbar eyed him. “I’m not doing nothing, I’m driving.  _ You’re _ doing nothing.”

“Oh yes,” Clevinger replied sarcastically, “I’d forgotten. It’s not as if you’re right there.”

The car puttered along with condoling repetition until Dunbar broke the nonexistent silence, cutting the sorry tension between them which had become so taut it could’ve been sliced with a butter knife. “Twenty hours,” he mused.

“You’ve really set us in for the long haul, haven’t you? Why, there must be some sort of… freudian condition for refusing to fly on a plane. Aviophobia! That’s it! You’re an aviophobe! Oh, we could be in Santa Ana already if- well if you would’ve just hopped on the damn plane.”

“What’s it to you?”

Clevinger crossed his arms. “It’s nothing to me, but it ought to be something to you.”

“We’re strangers.”

“We canvassed our mutual friend Yossarian and our time in Vietnam; our stories weren’t so disparate from each other, you know. And the film industry! You’re the first person who’s been willing to engage me in conversation about that, you know.”

“ _ Listen _ to you talk about it,” Dunbar corrected, “We’re still strangers.”

“I saved your life! We survived a near-death plane crash together!”

“Oh, and you said it wouldn’t crash. Strangers.”

“I’ve got it!” Clevinger snapped his thumb and middle finger, “I’m going to help you move in, remember?”

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Strangers.”

Clevinger began to grasp at straws, his taut features even more prominent with his imminent frustration. He bit his lip. “God, maybe we shouldn’t have, but we- we even slept together! Doesn’t that amount to anything to you?”

Dunbar assured him that there was no god and that it did amount to something, but they were still strangers, and Clevinger acquiesced and slumped back in his seat. He remained there, staring out the window and assaying to justify his existence in the 57’ chevy bel air until Dunbar swerved off the road to avoid an RTA with the only other vehicle within a ten-mile radius and Clevinger had to sit up to apoplectically chew him out. Over all, neither could have asked for a better beginning to the twenty-hour journey to which they had hopelessly drafted themselves.

* * *

Nightfall arrived with a choppy little zephyr after twelve hours of driving and thirty minutes of stopping at a roadside five-and-dime to pick up dinner items and a couple of beers. Dunbar pulled the car over to the side of the road once the sole light source was the stars freckling the midnight blue sky and the little sliver of moon just peeking out from behind a singular scanty cloud. Headlights would’ve continued to light their way had he continued, but even headlights couldn’t lighten the aching in his hands from driving for twelve hours. “Are you crazy?” Clevinger had asked when Dunbar shut off the ignition.

“Are you?” Dunbar rallied back, “If I fall asleep at the wheel, who’ll be the crazy one then?”

That shut Clevinger up. Without contention, he left the car and pulled a compact blanket from his suitcase in the rear luggage compartment. Clevinger was the sort of person to keep his mind open about any and every subject he could. He’d done such a good job keeping his mind open, most of the logic he possessed had fallen clean out. When he’d retrieved all desired items from his suitcase and withdrew Dunbar’s own blanket from his musette bag, Clevinger gave the boot door a vehement slam, tossed his blanket on the ground, and reclined. Dunbar stared at him. “Who’s the crazy one now? There’s more than enough room in here.”

“For what?”

“You, moron,” Dunbar patted the vacant passenger seat, “Besides, you’ll freeze to death out there. Is that what you want? Expiration in the brumal midwest desert.”

Clevinger found himself optimistic that a cold death wouldn’t befall him. His bedding arrangement kept him from falling asleep on the shoulder of a stranger, who wasn’t really a stranger because he assented to pointless wrangles about the intangible and theater, which wasn’t exactly intangible, even though it certainly wasn’t palpable in the sense most everything else was. The great esoteric steelyard of his questions sat prominently in his mind; if it was bitterness about being considered a stranger by a man he’d slept with that left him in the wake or if he truly favored more space to a warm car and a companion. Did solace come with a mind congested with the insoluble or the assurance that elucidation would never prevail, and that was okay? Clevinger gave Dunbar a fleeting glance and shut his eyes.

Dunbar scrutinized the man on the ground with dismay before yanking the heavyweight door closed with the window open and hitting the hay. Despite the acute discomfort Clevinger already felt from the misshapen and mucronate rocks pressing against his back, he rolled over onto his side and fell asleep, shivering.

* * *

At three in the morning, Clevinger hated to admit it, but Dunbar had been right. His fingers had gone lifeless and torpefied from the desert cold, the sudden drop in night temperature came as a rude awakening. Clevinger rubbed his eyes with his forearm - in place of his hands, which hadn’t warmed up enough to be mobile - and trotted dutifully up to the rufescent side of the chevy. He rapped against the open car window with his knuckles, yet received no response. Clevinger shifted his weight with another tremble. “Dunbar?” he asked, softly, “John?”

He reached a gauche hand through the window and put a hand on Dunbar’s shoulder. “John?” he put forward again quietly, “Jo-”

“What?” Dunbar asked loudly.

Clevinger sprung backwards in shock and hit his hand against the metal window frame, which caused him to come to his senses and walk back over to the car window. “You were- were right, it’s freezing out here. I give up.” he blurted, “Can I come in, now?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Dunbar asked wearily, “Go back to sleep.”

“I can’t. It’s freezing out here, just let me in and I’ll sleep. It’s no Gordian knot. It’s just cold.”

Dunbar blinked with fatigue. “I told you, idiot,” he opened the car door, but instead of allowing Clevinger in, he tucked his blanket under one arm and stepped out into the icy tundra, “Come on.”

“Wha- where the hell are we going?” Clevinger demanded, following obediently after Dunbar, “We’ll freeze out here! Let’s go back to the car. Dunba- John! Let’s go back!”

Dunbar reached into his pocket and pulled out a little lighter, and after assembling a small pile of brush with a border of stones around it, he lit it on fire. “There,” he admired his handiwork for a moment before sitting down beside it, “Sit. The early morning hours always pass the slowest, you know. Sometimes a whole damn year goes by if you’re insomnolent from midnight to dawn.”

“That’s inane,” Clevinger told him, lowering himself to the ground with a yawn, “An hour lasts an hour whether or not it’s day or night. Whether you’re running or walking. Whether it’s raining or-” a second yawn interrupted his sleepy harangue, “snowing or sunny. It’s a construct and it’s constructed to be the same regardless of circumstance or factor.”

“Or perception?”

“No, no, we perceive its passage and then our perception is translated to fact. Perception isn’t inherent fact, since perception isn’t measurable nor a unit of measure although hours are.”

“So the measurements of our perception are fact? Aren’t they but perception, too?” Dunbar asked, but his questions became rhetorical and never received answers because Clevinger had drifted off to sleep. His overwrought eyes were mesmerized with the flickering flames like those of a young child’s, until he was overcome with lassitude and simply collapsed under the weight of his rationalization. His head slumped over onto Dunbar’s shoulder, which he accepted with defeat as the itchy wool of a counterpane crept around his still-frozen shoulders. For a moment, Dunbar contemplated shoving Clevinger off and onto the rocks (since he’d already granted him his blanket) but ultimately decided against it. 

The little occasional snores and sighs kept Dunbar just inches from his forty winks. For three hours, he stared into the enervated coals which extinguished as if on cue three hours later, accompanied by the sunrise. Three hours had never felt so extensive, nor had they flown by so quickly. With his free hand, Dunbar massaged his temples and nictated at the brilliant light. He felt restlessly equanimous, but for a second, he had the unerring sense of completeness. Then, just as abruptly as it had come, it was gone.

* * *

Clevinger awoke in a desultory fashion the second Dunbar’s wrist watch hour hand hit seven. He adjusted to his position groggily, at first wondering why he wasn’t in a bed, then wondering why he wasn’t on the ground beside the chevy, and finally remembering the night chills and lilliputian fire. He stole a quick glance around before closing his eyes again, pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders, and settled back down on Dunbar’s shoulder. Shoulder? Clevinger shot up abruptly. “I- I’m sorry. Good morning? Morning. Good. Good morning.”

“You’re awake.”

“Yeah,” Clevinger said, which was more of a statement than an agreement, “Look, I- I’m sorry for falling asleep there. It wasn’t my intention.”

“It’s fine,” said Dunbar, who didn’t care, “Besides, we’ve slept together.”

“But we’re strangers. You said it yourself!”

“What difference does that make?”

“What difference does that make? What difference does that make!?” Clevinger exclaimed, transitioning from tired to feverish within mere seconds, “Why, it was just yesterday when you wouldn’t stop saying it!”

“Stating it,” Dunbar corrected, “And it’s true.”

“Oh? You- you’re crazy! Even last night, you don’t even know how long an hour is! It’s an hour, you can’t get it longer or shorter and three of them certainly can’t be a year. And we certainly can’t be strangers, far too much has happened- alright,” he started again, interrupting himself, “Alright. When,  _ according to you _ , won’t we be strangers?”

“When we’re not.”

“What?”

“When we’re not,” Dunbar repeated, “I mean, we can’t not be strangers while we still are.”

“Then who decides when we aren’t strangers?”

Dunbar shrugged. “We’ll know,” he replied matter-of-factly.

Clevinger threw the scratchy blanket in Dunbar’s general direction and left toward the car. “You really are crazy,” he told him, “Tonight, we’re getting a hotel room.”

Before he knew it, the conversation had come to an end, and momentarily Dunbar became somewhat aware that he hadn’t wanted it to end. Yet, he dismissed his thoughts and headed off to the car. Thinking about the past, in his eyes, could shorten a life substantially. Wallowing in time that had already passed was equivalent to reliving it, but it wasn’t really reliving because it wasted the present time and left the reminiscer with much less than when he started.

Dunbar slid into the seat beside Clevinger. “What’s the driving plan for today?” he asked.

“Only an hour and forty minutes. We’ll hit a little burgh which should have restaurants and a motel to spend the night. We won’t pass another one for the remainder of the trip, so the stop-over should be worth it.”

Dunbar accorded with him, and the two set off on the shortest leg of the journey and the longest sustained disputation they’d had since the flight five days prior.

* * *

As it turned out, Clevinger had been right. Within the town, there existed exactly one lodging location known as The Grundy Hotel. It was the sheer opposite of the Grundyism after which it had likely been named, flecks of once golden paint chipping off onto the unmowed lawn. Shingles clung onto the roof for dear life, and to top it all off, the hand painted sign had become washed out to the point where Clevinger could barely read the letters and couldn’t tell Dunbar about its existence until they were in front of the drive, which caused Dunbar to take a sharp sixy degree turn and nearly crash the rental into a pair of pine trees.

The owner of The Grundy Hotel was a stodgy old man who had been a tax collector in his youth and was asked by every child he met if he was actually Yosemite Sam, to which he never responded. He was frequently mistaken due to his exuberant russet moustache which covered eighty percent of his face and large eyebrows which followed suit and covered the other twenty percent. He stood, hunched, behind the little brass plaque with the name “Samuel Grundy” emblazoned on it. He frowned when Clevinger and Dunbar walked in, musette bag and suitcase in hand. 

“Good Afternoon, sir,” Clevinger said politely, “Do you have a room? We’d like to spend the night. Just one night. What are your prices?”

Samuel glared at them. He’d flown out to the west after sixty years of being a bachelor in Rhode Island; it was easier to be miserable alone than with company. “One room or two?”

Clevinger looked over to Dunbar and they shared a knowing glance. “Tw-”

“No,” Dunbar interrupted, “One room is just fine.”

“Didn’t- didn’t you want two?” Clevinger asked in surprise and received a hearty head shake in response, “Fine. One. What’s the cost?”

“Four dollars.”

“Highway robbery! Look at the- the state of this place! You’ve got some serious renovations to make before you even  _ think _ about charging someone four dollars for a single night.”

“Can’t,” Samuel told him, “I need money before I could make any changes, you know. This stuff doesn’t appear out of thin air like you youngsters think it does.”

“I’m twenty-nine,” Dunbar said.

“Youngster.”

Clevinger frowned. “I still don’t see why you’re charging us so much given the state of this place. You really shouldn’t until it’s all fixed up.”

“Look, kid, if I don’t charge you the damn rent, I’ll never have enough to renovate. Just shut the hell up and pay me, room’s all yours.”

His demand for payment was direct but not specific, and thirty minutes later, Dunbar and Clevinger headed off with the keys to one of the doors and Samuel sat miserably at his desk with a pile of four hundred pennies in front of him. He spent the rest of the evening counting them again and again to ensure there really were four hundred - before stuffing them into little brown paper rolls. He dropped one coin beneath the register but abandoned it there, since it wasn’t worth the extra energy he would’ve spent.

The little room with two little twin-sized beds remained empty for the majority of the day while Dunbar and Clevinger left to go shopping and get dinner, only to be reinhabited once dusk had arrived and Dunbar was thoroughly inebriated and getting the lecture of his life. He was exhausted and yet lay awake for most of the night, listening to Clevinger beside him, rambling in his sleep about his theories. None of them made any sense. Then again, when did anything?

The next morning came and went, and by the time they were back on the road again, Clevinger still hadn’t made very much sense. “You don’t mind if I fall asleep, do you?” Clevinger asked from the passenger seat out of the blue.

“No, go ahead.”

Clevinger leaned onto his side. “Wake me up when you get to exit fifteen; you’ve got another hour or so on this road. It’s pretty straightforward, but I’m here if you have questions.”

“It’s a straight line and you’ll be sleeping,” Dunbar contested, but by the time he had, Clevinger was already fast asleep, snoring like  _ he _ was the one with a hangover who hadn’t slept the previous night.

He sighed and turned back to the road. There were only seven hours left in their trip before they’d both be safely back on the streets of Santa Ana, Clevinger for the umpteenth time and Dunbar for the first. He came into the acute awareness that even though he felt like he’d been on the road for a week, he didn’t want it to end. The warm breeze drifted in through the half-lowered back window, heat shimmering off the rocks in the distance. It made him feel lightheaded yet comfortable.

Dunbar longed for something that never was - perhaps something he’d had only a taste of - and wished Clevinger would wake up and prattle on about something he either didn’t care about or disagreed with. He began to feel increasingly bitter for both being unable to put his finger on it and not having it. In the midst of the comfort yet resentment, hope yet neglect, he realized ten minutes had passed in place of what he’d assumed was only one. Instead of keeping to the road for another hour, he took the first exit he could. Then the next. And the next. Familiarity attenuated until everything felt strange and foreign, and the highway was a far different one than the highway Dunbar had been on an hour prior.

* * *

Clevinger woke up.

That was the true undoing of Dunbar’s spontaneous decision, Clevinger would wake up and they’d be miles from the starting point. “Did we pass exit fifteen?” he asked sleepily, and when he got a negative response, he turned to Dunbar, “It’s been three hours- how didn’t we pass it? It was only an hour out, unless you were going twenty miles per hour.”

Clevinger was incensed when he learned of the intentional wrong turns which had been made. “What the hell do you mean, we’re three hours away? We won’t have a place to spend the night unless we turn back now. What were you thinking?”

Dunbar didn’t know what he’d been thinking, and the things he had been thinking weren’t things he felt like saying. He stared vacantly out of the windshield. “I don’t know,” he professed at last, “Is it really important?”

“Yes, it is! We’re hours away, now, and we’ll wind up sleeping on the ground again. This is your fault! We didn’t have a long way to go, and if you really needed help with the route, you should’ve woken me up. God! It’ll be days until we’re back.”

“There’s no God.”

“And now you’ve changed the topic!” Clevinger was furious and forgot for a second what he’d been yelling about, “We’ve been driving for ages and we’ll be driving for ages more!”

Dunbar looked sheepish. “I’m driving,” he reminded, “You’re just along for the ride.”

“Oh, and that doesn’t matter to you, does it? Just because I haven’t got anyone nor any reason to be back there on time, you’ve endeavored to waste my days! Just- just because-”

“What do you want?” asked Dunbar, who’d forgotten why Clevinger was beside himself for a second.

Clevinger ground his teeth and made an inaudible, frustrated noise. His cheeks had turned bright red, although whether it was from the heat or his pique, Dunbar couldn’t tell. Dunbar opened his car door and stepped out. “Go, then. Drive back.”

Clevinger glanced up for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

He waited until Dunbar had returned from the trunk of the car with his musette bag in hand. “I’ll walk back. You drive. Here’s the receipt,” he handed a little folded paper to Clevinger, “You give this to the Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Santa Ana when you return the car.”

“You- you can’t be serious,” Clevinger gawked at him, looking hell for leather down at the paper then back up to the man standing beside his window, “You’re really going to walk three hundred miles?”

“I am,” Dunbar assured him.

Clevinger remembered why he’d been angry and flounced back inside the vehicle. “Fine, then. If you’re going to be like that, go!” He shifted into the driver’s seat and mopped his brow, which was glistening already from having the window open for a few minutes. He pressed down the gas and the car pulled away, leaving Dunbar in the dust, on the side of the road.

* * *

It took two entire hours for Clevinger to calm down and come to his senses. When he did, he found himself bogged down in an insatiable acrimony which manifested itself in the form of a pit at the bottom of his stomach. He pulled over onto the shoulder to take a moment and recuperate. He inhaled once, then exhaled, and realized something felt terribly wrong. The sickeningly thick air hung over the land like an invisible fog, the car’s little air conditioners barely fighting the dense atmosphere outside. Clevinger shook his head. “What was I thinking?” he asked himself, and no resolve came from the absence of reply.

On one hand, he felt the need to keep driving; Santa Ana was only five hours and a gas station away. On the other, survival in the weather was an impossibility. Clevinger made up his mind after twenty minutes of weighing the options and turned tail, driving down the highway back to where he’d left Dunbar. He came as close to the speed limit as he could (but not past, because he’d break out in hives if he broke the rules) and pulled off onto the shoulder upon spotting a man inching along, step by step. Clevinger watched him for a few minutes before deciding it was probably Dunbar and left the vehicle to get him. “Dunbar,” he called, waving one hand, “Get back in the car.”

Slowly, Dunbar arrested himself mid-step and turned around. “Why’d you come back?” he asked.

Clevinger told him he didn’t know. “You don’t look alright. Come on, get back in the car.”

“I’m trying,” he mumbled. 

The normal walk he’d started with had faded to a sickly stagger and his complexion had flushed red. With plenty of assistance that he didn’t want, Dunbar collapsed in the passenger seat and fell asleep. Clevinger pressed the back of his hand against one of the feverish cheeks, then undid the top few buttons on Dunbar’s overcoat and left him limp against the windowpane. He’d neglected to bring water along and drove back to Albuquerque, which happened to be the closest city off the meager roads Dunbar had taken. 

Twenty minutes in, the pyretic red hadn’t faded from Dunbar’s cheeks and his breathing was shallow. There was no certainty of much, and Clevinger reached delicately across the seat and shook him lightly by the arm. “Come on,” he said, “Wake up. Talk to me.”

At first, there was no response, and Clevinger began to worry. He was all but short of wringing his hands when a very faint reply came, “It’s too hot in here.”

“I know,” Clevinger reassured, even though he didn’t know and felt cold in his jacket. He thought for a moment, and upon realizing Dunbar had closed his eyes again, spoke up. “Say something else.”

“Something else. Are we going the rest of the way, now?”

“No, we’re going to a motel, we’ll be in Albuquerque soon. It’s ten hours to Santa Ana, we’d probably have to stop at a few gas stations.”

“Why aren’t we going all the way? We’d make it. We could sleep in the car.”

Clevinger swallowed. He listened to the slurred speech of the man in the passenger seat, his feverish behavior and glazed eyes. In earnest, he gripped the steering wheel and pressed on. “I’m-” he arrested himself mid-sentence, “You don’t look well. I want to see if we can get you to a doctor in the city.”

“A doctor in a hospital?”

“Where else do they keep doctors? Yes, a doctor in a hospital!”

He waited for a reply but got none because Dunbar - in all his etiolated glory - had begun to daydream about sitting in a hospital waiting room with a contentless magazine containing plenty of words but no meaning and Clevinger, who would be as annoying as ever. Clevinger glanced over at him, slumped over in the passenger’s seat and felt his hands seize up with guilt. However soon they arrived in Albuquerque wouldn’t be soon enough.

* * *

Albuquerque had a handful more hotel options than the little town they’d passed before, it was effortless to find one and get checked in. “How’re you feeling?” Clevinger asked the next morning, “Here, have some water.”

“I don’t want water,” Dunbar said, then drank some anyway, “I feel like I’m going to die. Are we going to the doctor?”

“I called this morning. Apparently all the hospitals in this area - as well as everything else - are under a new management and it could be two weeks until you’d be seen by a doctor. If we’re still here in two weeks, then maybe I’ll phone them and see if they have a vacancy.”

Dunbar set the glass of water he’d been handed on the side table. “I could probably refrain from dying for two weeks.”

“You aren’t going to die. I spoke with a practitioner and he said you probably just have a light case of heat stroke from attempting to walk three hundred miles in high ninety degree heat.”

Dunbar leaned back on his pillow. “I don’t think I’m ready to die yet. Twenty-nine years isn’t very many.”

“You aren’t going to die!”

“There’s still a copious amount I have yet to do. It’s really a shame. We haven’t even done something frivolous together yet, like bowling. I suppose it’s too late for that, now that I’m going to die.”

“You aren’t going to die,” Clevinger crossed his arms, “I won’t accede to that. We’re staying here until you’ve recovered. There’s nothing urgent there for either of us, anyway - besides, a couple of days aren’t of significance, are they?”

Birds chirped from outside. “Oh, each day is always significant. By the way, do you think they could lower the temperature in here any?”

And so began five days of recovery, during which Dunbar did not die, inordinately because he was only very mildly ill. He tried to make it last two weeks to make it to the promised doctor’s appointment, but they still had eleven hours to go on the drive and Clevinger got him back in the car a day after he stopped complaining about headaches and light nausea.

* * *

The return trip felt anything but interesting. It only lasted one day, although they left early in the morning to make it back before night had fallen. By noon, the same old stories had been told and Clevinger had described a series of his theories, which Dunbar added to by fabricating things to have heard Clevinger say in his sleep. “If we describe the shift in space-time as one of the major factors of the shape of galaxies and the universe-”

“Trout.”

“What?”

“Trout.”  
“For dinner?” Clevinger asked.

“No, in the path.”

“The road?”

“Your dream.”

“How do you know what’s in my dreams?” he said suspiciously. “I don’t even know what’s in them.”

“I’m there. You were talking about that theory,” Dunbar explained, “You said it had something to do with trout.”

Clevinger shook his head. “I used to fish with my cousin, when we were younger. What type? Bonneville cutthroat, biwa, adriatic…? A different one?”

“How should I know? I was asleep.”

“Well, then. Maybe- was trout the shape of the universe?” he bit his lip, “We can’t measure the  _ shape _ of the universe because it’s so expansive - it’s indeterminate whether it’s finite or infinite, too. But a trout? I mean- a trout? In the universe or in the shape of the universe? I mean, trouts definitely are  _ in _ the universe, but-?”

Dunbar shrugged. “That’s just what you said.”

Rain pattered on the tin roof of the car, an earthy smell drifting in from outside. Clevinger decided he couldn’t have been wrong in his dream because it  _ was _ his dream, and continued on with his notion of trout, being the shape of the universe. He had felt significantly less guilty as the days passed on. The character of each interaction had a different feel to it, something with less of the animosity which had never been there and more banter. Camaraderie? Maybe.

“It’s going to be nine upon our arrival, granted there’s no traffic.” Clevinger said eventually, “Since you’re not quite up to par, you’re welcome to spend the night at my ranch. I’ll help you get settled tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

Then, they rode off into the sunset, except it wasn’t a sunset because it was pouring out and also noon.


	3. here because the price is right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milo and Wintergreen focus chapter. Basically little stories about their lives as they go from the worst of black-market enemies to close friends after their meeting on the plane, and then maybe a little more than friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Milo and Wintergreen centric chapter.
> 
> I'd like to preface this by saying that yes, I did accidentally create a femslash ship between the chaplain's wife and milo's wife and no, that was not my intention, but it just sort of... happened... and unfortunately i'm warming up to the idea and might write about them later on in the AU. 'Mary' is taken from the whole 'Dear Mary', but I think it'd make a lot of sense for her name given the previous religious establishment... although if she does have a canonical name that I don't know about, please tell me! More characters might be added into this (it's only going to be ten chapters. I'm not letting it grow longer than that.), but each chapter will focus around a different group of people or mini-story, if you will.

Nobody wanted the seemingly endless supply of balsa wood Milo possessed. He’d only become cognizant of it being balsa wood after the purchase; from behind the display case, it looked an awful lot like southern yellow pine, which actually was in high demand. “You did what?” Wintergreen asked when Milo explained his predicament.

“Well, it wasn’t really what _I_ did,” Milo contended, “You see, I didn’t know it was balsa wood until I’d bought it.”

Wintergreen surveyed him, trying to see where his contention aligned with the twenty-six transportation trucks filled with balsa wood which he owned. “You still made the purchase, though, didn’t you?”

“I did do that, yes.”

“Then it is really what _you_ did, isn’t it?”

“How could I know it was balsa wood?” Milo riposted, scratching his moustache in frustration.

In reality, the seller had explained it was balsa wood without allowing Milo to examine it for himself, and the wood bore an infelicitous resemblance to southern yellow pine. Balsa wood had plenty of uses, but none Milo was willing to spend money on and none anyone else was willing to buy it off Milo to use. In summary, he’d made a very poor decision indeed.

“Why don’t you make dinner and I’ll figure out what to do with the wood, you poor schmuck,” Wintergreen suggested, but dinner rolled around and Wintergreen hadn’t found a solution but Milo had, which was to grind up the balsa wood and mix it with barbeque sauce, which was hardly different from regular barbeque sauce except for the daunting taste of sawdust which pervaded each bite.

Wintergreen took a bite into one of the deep-fried chicken legs coated in thick barbeque sauce, then promptly spit it into his napkin with a displeased yet betrayed glance at Milo. “The hell did you put in here?” he demanded, pushing the plate towards Milo, “You try it.”

“It can’t be that bad!” Milo claimed, pushing the plate back, “Why don’t you have a bit more?”

Wintergreen affixed his collar and looked helplessly back at Milo. “No - don’t you know it tastes like sawdu- Milo?”

“Wintergreen?”

“I’m going to ask you a very serious question, and I’d appreciate if you answer accordingly.”

Milo thought about that. On one hand, he cared, and on the other, he didn’t. “Alright.”

“Did you put the balsa wood in the barbeque sauce?”

He had, which was unfortunate for Milo in a multitude of ways. “Are you certain you tasted it? Perhaps that’s just how barbeque sauce tastes. Besides, the chicken is one of the finest cuts from the store! I acquired it with you in mind, you know.”

“I can’t eat it! The hell do I care if it’s the best or the worst if it’s going to taste like sawdust? You’re a formidable chef, but you can’t cook trees!”

Milo considered this a failure on two counts - the first failure was his being kicked out of the Prime Minister’s lodging for the night by Wintergreen, who insisted Milo sleep on the couch while he got the bed so they’d be even for balsa-wood covered chicken. The second was the restaurant Milo had intended to open for the purpose of selling balsa wood disguised as edible cuisine, which tasted like cardboard anyway so it wouldn’t be such a far cry from the health code violation version. Still, he slept soundly until he awoke with resentment and a minor back pain, both of which he forgot about when the phone rang, alerting him to a potential profit, and he woke Wintergreen up to drive the two of them.

“I can’t understand why you can’t drive yourself,” Wintergreen complained, buttoning up his shirt and affixing the collar, “You oughta let me sleep in. I didn’t have dinner last night, which should allot to being thoroughly spent.”

“Nor did I,” Milo mentioned, passing Wintergreen his tie.

“Oh, and whose fault is that? We could’ve both had our dinner and eaten it too if you’d had enough sense to make it edible.”

Wintergreen glanced in the mirror for a fleeting moment to adjust his glasses, then blundered out of the room the two of them had been sharing. He slid urbanely behind the wheel and paused for a few minutes, thumbing the leather and metal until Milo installed himself in the passenger seat and the consuming must of bad cologne pervaded the air. Wintergreen gagged and started the ignition. “Lay off on the perfume next time, will you?”

Milo pretended to ignore him. “We’ve got quite the while to go - we’re off to Albuquerque today.”

The car pulled out onto the bustling roadway. “Convenient that you’ve got a driver,” Wintergreen muttered, pulling the shift into second gear, “I don’t know what you’d do without me.”

“Why, probably the same thing we’re doing right now, except you wouldn’t be driving,” Milo assured him, riffling through a small stack of papers in his lap which held his business information and taxes.

Milo had become significantly skilled at tax evasion by taking up permanent residence nowhere and official residence everywhere. His weakness was falsifying the paperwork, but with his biggest rival of the black market no longer working at cross purposes and deflating his ego, fraud came more easily.

They pulled onto the highway, and with all the grace of a bull in a china shop, Wintergreen left right hand languidly on the inner part of Milo’s thigh. Their eyes met for a moment and Milo turned definitely back to his paperwork. “You really ought to keep both hands on the steering wheel,” he suggested, diverting his attention to tax fraud instead of the rhapsodies which rushed through him.

He related them to the thrill of profit, the illogic of that feeling applying to anything else seemed the only option; a stalemate.

“I’m left-handed, you’ll be fine,” Wintergreen promised, and Milo shifted slightly in his seat - only to get a better view at his papers, he rationalized.

“If you say,” Milo told him, “At this rate, maybe it’d be better if I drove.”

Wintergreen had changed his mind and decided he liked driving better, although surely the one-handed nature of his settlement had nothing to do with it. “We’ll profit more if you take care of the tax fraud, you know. If we switch, I’ll take twice as long with it _on purpose_ ,” he ran his right thumb in fumbling little circles on the rayon wool of Milo’s suit pants.

Milo gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

Wintergreen slid his hand up higher on Milo’s thigh. “Oh, I would, too. Don’t underestimate me.”

“Our arrangement isn’t so bad,” Milo assured rationally, more to himself than Wintergreen, and shifted in his seat again from the heat under his collar.

“Of course it isn’t. What kind of a fool would think it was? We’re turning profit.”

“I’m turning the profit and you keep turning that wheel, or neither of us will be turning anything.”

Wintergreen laughed dryly, taking a moment to actually look at Milo’s face, which was nothing to look at. He faced the road again and wished for just a moment that they could be back on the plane so he’d have an excuse to insult Milo’s ego in place of lusting after him, which was a grandiose waste of time.

They tooled along down the road a little further, until Wintergreen offered to turn the air conditioning on because Milo’s face and ear tips had adopted a conchial hue which nearly matched his awful little moustache but not quite.

* * *

Albuquerque came into view shortly after the sun set, and Milo and Wintergreen left the car parked outside the most lavish hotel. Milo held the door for himself, then dropped it when Wintergreen followed. “They say chivalry is dead and I’d be inclined to agree,” Wintergreen muttered.

“Certainly unimportant,” Milo told him, “Focus on the important!”

“What’s the important?”

“It’s- you know what, I’ll do the talking. You just stand here and agree with me,” Milo decided.

Wintergreen looked at him skeptically. “What happens if I’m predisposed to disagree with you?”

“Don’t,” Milo said, then turned to the woman working at the front desk. She wore cat’s eye glasses with a long beaded chain which hung down like broken bridge cables. The glasses slid to the very tip of her nose and had the appearance that they might slip all the way down any minute. She wore her hair in a tight, clipped bob, which matched her tight, clipped personality. Milo drummed his fingers on the desk. “I’d like a room for the night, one please.”

“We’ve got no vacancies,” the woman told him in a brash voice, “You’d be better off finding another place.”

“No, no, we can work with this. How about a floor. How much for a floor?”

“Excuse me?” she asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”

Milo smiled apologetically, as though he were sorry for her ineptitude. “You know… a floor. This is a six story building, I’d like to buy one of the stories.”

“You’re crazy!” she laughed, “You can’t just buy a floor! Why, no one can own only one floor of a hotel - surely you mean buying, not renting?”

Milo nodded. “That’s right. I’d like to buy a floor, not rent it.”

“Even if you could, what would you do with a single floor? How useless is that?”

Her laughter sounded like a dying crow. Milo scratched his moustache thoughtfully. He turned to Wintergreen and the two of them shared a glance. “You know,” he told him, “She’s right. It would be pretty strange to own but a floor of a hotel. What would you do with a floor, Milo?”

He received no response. Milo faced the woman again. “My partner’s right. Alright! I wasn’t going to, but I’ll go all in. I’d like to purchase the whole thing,” he gestured vaguely, “The whole hotel.”

“The whole hotel?” the woman asked, her cat’s eye glasses slipping off the end of her nose.

“The whole hotel?” Wintergreen echoed.

“The whole hotel!” Milo told them proudly, and within five minutes had bought the deed from the owner, who had been listening to the whole conversation going down from his office behind the front desk. He’d bought the hotel in the very same way fifteen years prior, and the whole thing was a great mental strain which he decided he could do without.

The receptionist passed him the paperwork, then gave a lopsided smile which was nearly worse than Milo’s typical lopsided smile, but not quite. “If you’d like a room… why, if you own the place, I suppose there might be one or two vacancies on the most expensive suites. Not many people pass this way with enough money to rent them out for any period of time.”

“Thank you, but we’ll be going now,” Milo told her.

“What do you mean, we’re going?” demanded Wintergreen, who had only been as exhausted from driving once before, “You just bought a whole goddamn hotel, and we’re leaving now?”

Milo folded up the paperwork and tucked it neatly into his breast pocket. “Why, of course. Did you forget? I’m the mayor here, I have a residence! We’ll be all tucked in for the night, I called ahead on that waystation and we’ll be having dinner there, too. Let’s go.”

“Lucrative endeavors, my ass,” Wintergreen complained.

“Lucrative endeavors, your ass? Lucrative endeavors, a place for you to park it at the end of the day,” Milo retorted, and Wintergreen followed him with his arms crossed.

They left the palatial hotel lobby for the fresh breeze of the outside air, which somehow felt more open and welcoming than when they’d first stepped into it from their car. The sun hadn’t quite set, stars sprinkled in the cerulean sky which faded to yellow the closer to the horizon they looked.

* * *

Wintergreen complained less after he’d had dinner at the mayor’s residence with Milo, which had been a three-course meal featuring lobster, chopped and sauteed vegetables which were slightly burned, and a nice beef stock which had taken two days of simmering in a pot to make. It didn’t hold a candle to Milo’s cooking in his eyes, but he hadn’t eaten since lunch and was nearly beyond caring. Still, he was sapped from their trip.

“Are you certain you need help with paperwork?” Wintergreen asked, rubbing one of his eyes from underneath his aviator glasses.

Milo gave him a look which he hadn’t intended to look pleading, but seemed especially imploring to Wintergreen, who reminded himself that if Milo _was_ being imploring, it was only to get the paperwork processed faster. “I don’t need help with it, but a second pair of hands would be awfully helpful,” Milo told him.

Wintergreen sighed. “Fine. We’re sitting in the living room, I’m not going to get myself carpal tunnel in one of those hard-backed dining chairs.”

They sat beside each other in two striped chairs with large cushions and wooden arm-rests which Milo had commissioned to be reupholstered at the women’s prison, fourteen miles south of Santa Fe three months prior. Wintergreen remarked on the fabric colour with dull kindness, and Milo took the thanks to heart even though he hadn’t fixed on it for Wintergreen’s sake - they’d only known each other then in the sense of their black market assumed names.

Wintergreen watched Milo sign paper after paper and stared at his own dull stack. He read the first one; a lengthy tax complaint over Milo’s evasion. It was problematic at best, and shyly, he slipped a lighter out from his jacket and lit the corner of the paper on fire. “Wintergreen!” Milo exclaimed when he was jolted up by Wintergreen snubbing out the remnants of the flame with his shoe, “Didn’t you used to be a mail clerk? You can’t just burn it!”

“I can, too,” Wintergreen assured, lighting the next paper (which broached the subject of an illegally parked M&M Enterprises airplane) aflame, “Why, how do you think I was so successful as a mail clerk?”

“Weren’t you demoted?” Milo asked with full skepticism, signing off another paper himself.

“Wasn’t I successful?” Wintergreen rallied back, resting his chin indolently on one palm with a smirk which crept onto his face without his immediate realization.

“Won’t the law crack down on us?”

“To hell with the law. How do you think we’ve evaded them thus far? By dancing in fields of poppies?”

“That was one time!” Milo protested, then narrowed his eyes, “You’ve only been partnered for two weeks, you’re telling me you obstructed the law before now?”

Wintergreen shook his head. “No, yes. The reason _I’m_ not in hot water is because they have no paperwork saying I should be, and the reason _you’re_ not is because _I’m_ not. Besides, you’ve got it easier as a married man with a family. I’m as single as can be, except I’m not because I’ve got you. Follow?”

Milo didn’t follow, but he gave skeptical trust because they’d shared business methods, and anyone willing to cheat out multiple countries and burn mail would surely be willing to do the same for a sizable paycheck. Milo signed another paper with a flick of his wrist, as though he were God. He inscribed large sums off to Wintergreen, who signed them right back, and somehow they profited. “Well, then, maybe it’s for the best if you burn those papers.”

“Yes, it’s for the best,” Wintergreen said, “Give me the legal issue ones, I’ll take care of them. Say, do you have any booze lying around here?”

“I don’t drink.”

Wintergreen leaned back against the chair. “What a lie! Let’s call up some champagne or whatever the hell you have to do around here to get a drink. You know, I used to be a bartender in college. Used to switch all the virgin orders with alcohol and all the alcohol ones with virgin versions.”

“They thought you did a good job?” Milo asked in bewilderment, taking a momentary pause from his signing to pass over a series of legal documents.

Wintergreen laughed. “Of course! Third best job I ever worked. Pass me a Boston shaker and I could make you anything. Say, didn’t you want to open a restaurant?”

“One day, perhaps. It _is_ a chef’s duty to offer the cream of the crop in food terms, of course. We’re better off working on the syndicate right now. You know, it was always my dream to own a syndicate.”

Wintergreen threw one of his papers to the ground when the flames reached his fingers. He blew on them and turned away like a dog with his tail between his legs. “I suppose it was also your dream to own a whole fucking fleet of T-39’s, too?”

“No, no. That’s just part of owning a syndicate.”

“Mhm, sure it is. So’s owning a bartender.”

Birds chirped from outside the window and Milo stood up to slam it shut. “I don’t own a bartender.”

“I’m a bartender.”

“I don’t own you.”

They shared an aimless glance. “You have a personal bartender and I have a personal chef. I daresay we’re equal.”

“You have a personal chef?” Milo catechized, only to ascertain from the unintentional smirk playing on Wintergreen’s lips the meaning. “Oh. Yes. I suppose you do. Objectively.”

“Objectively.”

“Objectively.”

Wintergreen snapped his fingers. “I’ve been meaning to tell you - I found some of your old war buddies. Some guy called John Yossarian phoned a few days ago, he’s in San Francisco.”

“He’s alive?”

Milo had left in a time when it was indeterminate whether Yossarian was alive or not. Wintergreen gave an absentminded shrug. “Must be. I don’t see how a dead man would be calling, do you? We’re going to get coffee with him next Tuesday.”

“I have a meeting with the president of Czechoslovakia then!” Milo cried, signing off another paper, “I don’t suppose we could postpone coffee with Yossarian?”

Milo longed for some postponement even though Yossarian was a mutual friend; at the same time, Milo had slept with him once when they were deployed, before Milo had arranged his whole syndicate to his liking. He didn’t wish for an awkward reunion. Wintergreen shook his head. “No, I’m afraid you’ll have to talk to the president and reschedule.”

“You should’ve known we were going to meet with the president.”

“How the hell would I have known?” Wintergreen asked, exasperated, “I’m not your secretary, I’m your surreptitious inamorato and you don’t tell me these things when you really ought to. I told Yossarian Tuesday, and Tuesday it is.”

Milo slid on one of the house-slippers at the base of his chair, then flicked it off again. “ _Fine._ I’ll reschedule with the president,” he moaned helplessly, “Look at this! You’re going to make me go soft!”

“Oh, please. What time is- one? I’m going to turn in for the evening. Don’t burn the midnight oil for too much longer. I’ll take care of the rest of this shit in the morning, just leave me out the legal ones,” Wintergreen stood up and made his way to the bedroom doorway.

“Very well, goodnight.”

Wintergreen stood thoughtfully in the doorway before walking back over to Milo. “C’mon, can I have a quick-” he planted a kiss on Milo’s cheek, then frowned, “Damnit, almost-”

Milo pulled him back with a light but also ice cold hand on his shoulder and brushed his chilly capitalist lips against Wintergreen’s. “There. Happy?” When Wintergreen nodded, he continued, “What’s good for either of us is good for the enterprise, you know.”

“I know, Minderbinder. I know.”

“Goodnight, Wintergreen.”

“Goodnight, Milo.”

“Sleep well,” Milo started, then remembered why and quickly justified, “For the good of the enterprise, of course. Can’t run a business on a faulty three hours.”

Wintergreen stood with his back to Milo at the door of the bedroom. “Of course you can’t. You’d better sleep soon, too. For the good of the enterprise, you know.”

“Night!” Milo called out, without a second glance up from his work, and heard the door close quietly behind him. The living room felt silent without the rapport of a second person, but Milo reminded himself that that had never been a bother before, and thus there was no reason it should now. Nose in paperwork, he quickly forgot that Wintergreen was fast asleep in the other room.

* * *

That had been Thursday, and by the time it was Saturday and three days away from meeting Yossarian for coffee, Milo still was unsure he felt confident enough to go. He’d bought out most of Albuquerque to reassure himself, except for the hospitals, which Wintergreen bought on behalf of M&M Enterprises “for the good of the enterprise”, he told Milo, although it was also in part to get Milo to stop acting like “a stubborn bitch about meeting up with their friends” as he told the head committee member in charge of the Albuquerque hospitals.

“It’s going to be hell for anyone trying to schedule appointments,” he told Milo, “It’ll take two weeks for our new management turnover and resetting of paperwork.”

“Small price to pay for a part of global enterprise.”

“An expense nonetheless.”

“Not one we’re paying for,” Milo gave a crooked smile, which Wintergreen simultaneously wanted to wipe off his face yet also had a strange affection to.

Milo had finished arranging the parking signs which instructed nobody to park there to help them avoid fines. He’d placed them all backwards, away from the cars. “The warning is there,” he had explained, “It’s not _my_ fault if they don’t see it and get fined.”

“Unless they’d read it before, you know no one’s going to see it,” Wintergreen pointed out, but they had a mutual understanding that Milo already knew what Wintergreen was going to say, and Wintergreen already knew what Milo was going to say.

They walked back to the car which had been parked in the street and now held six little green parking tickets which would have to be lit on fire later. Wintergreen pocketed them without a second thought and squired his worst enemy and best friend over to the mayor’s residence, where Milo the Mayor resided. His wife was back in New York, where Milo didn’t care whether or not she was cheating, so long as they didn’t get divorced because a divorce was terrible PR.

That night, Wintergreen sat at the foot of the bed shining his shoes with an old yellowed rag and a tin of black shoe grease. Milo reclined on a stool against the wall, thumbing through a dog eared copy of To Have And Have Not, which he liked because of the mentions of his beloved black market and hated because of the loss of income of the main character. “Don’t you have a book you hate and love at the same time?” Milo asked.

“No, that’s foolish. You either like it or you don’t,” Wintergreen told him, “You can’t have it both ways.”

Although he was certain he could have it both ways, the same way he wanted to insult the hell out of Milo and kiss him at the same time. Except he couldn’t fathom kissing a book, and Milo didn’t say anything else because he’d been reabsorbed in the tentative story which lay between the typed-down lines.

Wintergreen waited until they’d both dressed in their pajamas and Milo had showered and washed off his cologne, which Wintergreen still found absolutely abhorrent but had ceased to lambaste him about. They left a single light on, the little clay lamp on the right hand side table. Milo was about to close his eyes and drift off to sleep when he felt a tentative hand on his waist, pulling him against Wintergreen, and he looked up. “You look different without glasses,” he said simply, “How much is your prescription? I bet we could find you a better alternative.”  
“I don’t want a better alternative,” Wintergreen told him, reaching over to comb back his hair with light fingers, “Don’t you feel bad about what we do?”

Milo blinked like he was trying to process what Wintergreen meant. “You mean burn up our taxes and tickets? No, not really. I-”

“I meant the adultery,” Wintergreen cut in, “I know most people regret that sort of thing. I wanted to know where you stood.”

“It’s like anything else - it benefits us and the syndicate benefits, too,” Milo said. That wasn’t entirely what it was, but he had an aversion to admitting he preferred Wintergreen to his wife because Wintergreen was an asset and his wife wasn’t. Wintergreen was money and profit, and Milo loved profit. He saw profit in people, and the people he saw profit in were the people he could bring himself to love, because in essence, they were bank. “How could I feel bad about an endeavor which is this fruitful?” he put one hand on Wintergreen’s cheek and their eyes met, “At this rate, we’re going to own the whole world. Who gives a damn about adultery when you own every enterprise, public or private?”

Wintergreen was inclined to agree. He leaned closer, “I wasn’t going to tell you this,” he whispered, “But I arranged a stock trade opportunity in San Francisco. You won’t be missing out on profit going, you’ll be going where the profit is.”

They shared a quick kiss which was anything but chaste and entirely because of capitalism. It was all fine as long as Milo’s wife didn’t catch them, which she didn’t until seven months later at a holiday party which she demanded Milo return to New York for.

Milo had brought Wintergreen along for the purpose of meeting the family, which he deemed important. He did his best to not divulge the clandestine ties which truly brought his business partner overseas from Australia, where Milo was a premier of one of the states. Regina Minderbinder, on the other hand, held her suspicions high when her husband dodged a welcome-home kiss from her twice and pulled her aside to introduce her to Wintergreen, whom he described as “his business partner and closest friend”.

Still, she put away her doubts like the coats which she collected from each party guest and hung up on the three-footed wooden rack in the closet. However, she couldn’t simply put Milo in the closet, and planned to sit with him at dinner until he requested to sit beside his business partner, which he said would make more logical sense.

Regina - the ever-compensating housewife - rearranged the placards above the placemats to put Milo and his business partner together, and then promptly set hers beside her best friend, Mary, who had divorced her husband from his war-based insanity; and who agreed with her that Milo was likely cheating and had offered to help Regina cheat back on him by the two of them having sex, which Regina longed for but didn’t mention.

Still, the party went off without a hitch until Wintergreen excused himself from the table at ten, and Milo followed him out shortly after. “You ought to see about that,” Mary whispered to Regina, holding her hand under the table with both of her own, “I’ll make some toasts in your absence. They’ll hardly know you’re gone.”

“Thanks, Mary,” Regina whispered back, “You’re a true friend.”

“Don’t mention it - I know you would’ve done the same if Albert did what your Milo’s doing,” she said, her intense dark eyes glancing around, before turning to the table and tapping her glass as Regina snuck away. Mary had a soft-spoken yet strong manner, and she crept out of her introverted shell to start her speech. “Alright, ladies and gentlemen! I’d like to make a few toasts, maybe a little speech. So, what are we? Five days away from the big 1965?”

Her voice drowned out and Regina made a mental note to thank her later. She crept behind a wall where she could hear her husband’s voice, her fingers wrapped around the moulding. “I don’t want to keep doing this,” she heard a voice, probably Wintergreen’s, “You think it’s easy to watch you go away each night and sleep with her?”

“We weren’t doing anything,” Milo confessed, “It’s only two more days. If we have a falling out and she files for divorce, the courts will accept her case and- Wintergreen, think of it! We’ll hit the headlines!”

“We’ll just- if she files for divorce, we can pay them off for a ruling in our favor. No problem.”

“Yes, problem!” Milo whimpered, crossing his arms, “Someone will figure out there _was_ a problem and that the _debate_ of it hitting the divorce courts will pop up, and once again, we’ll hit the headlines! What if someone boycotted M&M? We’re a global company, Wintergreen, we can’t keep thinking like this!”

“We? What happened to us? You’ve gone up to that room for three nights and you sleep in bed with her and you abandon me to the guest room. Milo- look, I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep watching you go.”

“It’s only for two more days, then we’re out of here. We’ll be back in Australia before you know it. Besides, it’ll look suspicious if I don’t go up and sleep in her bed.”

Wintergreen pushed his glasses up higher on his face and gave a dry swallow. “Don’t you ever think about me? We’ll fall apart, this will be the end of it, ever think of that, you capitalism-obsessed megalomaniac? You’re still sleeping at night with that- that- woman!”

If Milo’s pride had been hurt, he didn’t show it. He spoke like he was trying to sell automobiles at a car dealership, “It’s completely chaste, I assure you. Besides, she’s my wife.”

“Oh, and what am I? Chopped liver?” Wintergreen shoved his hands in his pockets indignantly, “If you’re going to be like this, I’ll leave. I’ll quit the business. You and your M&M Enterprises can go right back to-”

“No!” Milo exclaimed, then lowered his voice back to the hushed tones before. He pressed his lips soundly against Wintergreen’s, and Regina peeked over the moulding and nearly fell over when she saw them, Wintergreen’s arms resting on Milo’s shoulders. She slipped back behind the wall. “I’ll make it up to you,” Milo promised, “I’ll… wait up in the guest room for me and I’ll be there at three.”

“PM?”

“AM,” Milo had slipped a piece of paper out of one of his pockets and was toying with it as he spoke, “You can’t complain like this anymore. What would happen if someone overheard us?”  
“Who cares?”

Milo glanced around. “ _They_ would. We’re both men, and I hate to say it, but that’s not,” he lowered his voice, “That’s not common. What would the world do if the partners of the world’s largest corporation were revealed to be in a liaison?”

“They won’t know,” Wintergreen gave his promise, elbowing Milo. He hated hiding who he was, but they had little option otherwise, and he succumbed to Milo’s pleading against the best of his wishes, “Loosen up, megalomaniac. Let’s go back to the table before they realize we’re missing.”

Regina ran back to find Mary, who had just finished her toasts, and when Milo and Wintergreen returned and sat back down, Regina excused herself and then Mary followed.  
“Well?” Mary asked, “Any verdict?”

Regina undid the top button on her collar and inhaled deeply. She collapsed on the stairs going up to the second floor beside Mary and turned to face her. “You were right,” she concluded, “You were right! They’re… together. Or something. I should’ve known!”

Mary took Regina’s hand in hers and massaged it gently, reaching up and down each finger until she reached Regina’s wedding ring and slid it off of her finger. “You did know, Gina, you did,” Mary reassured, trying to meet Regina’s eyes which betrayed her frustration, “You were the one who alerted me to the whole thing.”

“I know, I know.”

“Here, you can lean on my shoulder. It’s okay,” Mary offered, and Regina slumped against her, “What’re you going to do now? Will you divorce him like I did with Albert?”

Regina shook her head and wiped at a tear which had formed at the crook of her eye, “No. You divorced Albert for alleged insanity, but Milo was begging that- that other man- to be quiet for the remaining days so I wouldn’t divorce him.”

“He cheated on you, Gina,” Mary exclaimed, “You’re just going to let him get away with that?”

“Still cheating on me,” Regina reminded her glumly, toying with Mary’s wedding ring that she was wearing for God knows what reason, “He said it would ruin him - if I divorced him. I can’t bring myself to do that. I hate his business partner, but- I’m above ruining their lives.”

Mary shrugged and carted one hand through Regina’s thick curls. “You’re a good woman, Gina.”

“So’re you,” Regina smiled sadly, “Mary- I know we’ve been talking about it, but can’t you move here to New York with me? I know you’ve been thinking about it ever since you sent Albert out, but this place- four stories is what Milo’s paying for me and the kids. You’ve got your three little ones.”

Mary glanced down at Regina, her sensitive eyes surveying Regina’s unhappiness, “Wisconsin’s far from here, ‘Gin. It’d take me a week to pack up and move.”

“Oh, who gives a damn about a week? We’ll raise the little ones together. I’ll stay married to Milo, but in word only. What do you say?” Regina had nearly forgotten her desolation, it remained like a little anvil tugging at her heartstrings, “Please, Mary.”

Mary helped her sit back up and they glanced at each other for a moment. “You know I don’t need convincing. That army wives program may have been the best thing that ever happened to us.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Regina replied and stood up, smoothing her pink and green striped skirt down so the creases clung to the bottom like mud on shoes, “It’s funny, I know he’s not gone, but I almost… miss Milo. Not as much as I’m glad you’re moving here, though,” she added quickly.

Mary nodded sagely in agreement. “Don’t worry, it was the same thing with Albert and myself. I read his letters from Vietnam and missed him until I heard about the whole insanity court martial. Shameful!” she patted Regina’s hand confidently; she’d always been the stronger one between her and her ex-husband, “Let’s go back to the table, before they realize we’re missing.”

* * *

That night, Milo tried to follow Regina into their bedroom when she stopped him with one hand, midway through the hallway, to tell him that she knew and he was better off in the guest room. “For the good of the syndicate,” she explained (since that was the only way to get through to him), and Milo understood at once.

He committed a war crime a week later by bombing a few villages for a subversive East Asian group, but even though the stories came out in the paper, it was all very positive because he’d made an awful surplus of money by doing it, which effectively gained twenty-six different countries revenue. Still, Regina Minderbinder was assured that she had made the correct decision, especially now that her closest friend, Mary Tappman, helped with the burdens of being a single parent, which she wasn’t really… anymore.

* * *

Milo met up with Yossarian without a hitch, and the four of them got coffee at a snack shop with Yossarian’s insufferable roommate, Orr, of whom Milo had only heard rumors about because of his crash-landing escape south to Australia. “Nice to meet you,” Orr had said, sticking out a motor-oil covered hand to make their acquaintance.

“He’s a strange little bastard,” Yossarian explained, eyeing Orr, “It’s because he’s a mechanic. They’re like that, you know.”

The devised meeting had been significantly less awkward than Milo had envisioned it being. He offered Yossarian his massive stock of balsa wood, which Yossarian wasn’t able to afford but Milo was willing to put on credit. “I’ll sell you anything. I’ll even sell you a chocolate bar for ten thousand dollars,” Milo said in earnest.

“The hell are you talking about? Have you gone soft?” Yossarian stared at him in bewilderment, “Who’s going to pay you ten thousand dollars for a chocolate bar, that’s absurd.”

“Why, maybe you would. How about I sell it to you for fifty dollars, and then you pay me thirty a month in club services.”

Yossarian downed his second coffee in a singular gulp, then leaned back in the metal chair on the snack bar patio. “No one’s going to pay you that much for anything.”

“Most people would take him up on the second offer,” Wintergreen pointed out, “All the businesses around here are practically embezzling off you schmucks because you’re willing to pay that much.”

“What else is there to pay?” Yossarian asked, and Orr laughed but wouldn’t say why, and when Yossarian convinced him to say why, he’d stuck two large walnuts from the snack platter in his cheeks and wouldn’t stop snickering long enough for Yossarian to make out any of his words.

“You crazy little bat-faced, undergrowed-” Yossarian started, but stopped when he realized chewing out Orr wouldn’t do any good and turned back to face Milo and Wintergreen. When their little meeting had wrapped up, Milo ran off to the trade deal which had been procured by the ubiquitous Wintergreen, and Orr and Yossarian walked back to the apartment they were sharing until they both had enough money to pay for singles.

“You really ought to get out more,” Wintergreen told Milo, “Look what happens to people who don’t get out.”

“I know, I know,” Milo replied, “Get out or get crazy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if that femslash that just... happened... was a bad idea! Thank you so much for reading, and have an epic day. or not. don't let me tell you what to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you! @timeless-hiraeth on Tumblr if you'd like to talk :)


End file.
